


Keeping Company

by CryingaboutPercy



Series: Tumblr Drabbles [1]
Category: The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Series - Mackenzi Lee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26009272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CryingaboutPercy/pseuds/CryingaboutPercy
Summary: Felicity and Percy keep one another company while Monty sleeps in.
Relationships: Felicity Montague & Percy Newton
Series: Tumblr Drabbles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1887766
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Keeping Company

**Author's Note:**

> A request from tumblr I used as a warm up. They requested pre canon Percy and felicity complaining about Monty.

“Good morning, Felicity.” Comes a voice from behind me. It’s getting on in the morning and I’ve been occupying myself with diagrams of the lung under the sun. I hadn’t expected any company so I had made no attempt to keep my book close the way I usually do lest someone question the propriety of my readings for one of my sex. I close my book instinctually and admittedly too quickly as Percy, my brother’s best and only friend sidles up beside me. He’s got that fiddle he’s always toting around tucked under his arm to no one's surprise and he’s clearly just walked from his family’s home. 

“Good morning.” I say curtly and fold my hands atop my closed book. He hasn’t asked so I must assume he didn’t see anything. I don’t know what he’d think if he did. I don’t think he’d make fun, but I’m not sure that he’d understand either. “If you’re looking for Monty, he’s still asleep.”

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” It would be reasonable to expect most people to be up and about by this hour, but not Monty. This isn’t the first time Percy has stopped by to say hello and been greeted with the same situation. Not that Percy isn’t just as capable of sleeping half the day away when he’s been out late.

_boys,_ I think.

“Can I..?” He gestures to the seat beside me, like he means to sit with me.

I hesitate but settle on a shrug. “Feel free. Though, if you _are_ here for Monty you should go wake him. He’s just being lazy.”

Percy nods but he sits beside me anyway, laying his fiddle case across his lap mirroring the book in mine. I don’t mind Percy’s company. In fact I like having him around most of the time, even if he’s usually accompanied by Monty whose presence is far more tiresome. Though, that being said neither of us are the talkative type. That’s part of why I enjoy his company. Still I have to wonder if he would be offended if I resumed my reading. Likely not, but it would still be rude.

“I will in a bit, but I’m not in any rush. He’s a hassle to get out of bed if he really wants to be there.”

“Tip a jug of water on his head. That’ll do the job.”

Percy blinks at me and I imagine this is the first time he’s ever heard the idea. “Have you really done that?”

I think the act of pouring water over your sleeping siblings is something anyone with a brother or sister has at least thought of doing. Percy, however, is an only child. He does have a young cousin who he lives with, so maybe that counts for something. I seem to remember that boy being quite fond of Percy in the way that many young boys are fond of young men, but for whatever reason I never see them together anymore. So, it’s probably not applicable. 

I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips when I think of Montys drenched and confused face. “Once or twice.”

“That’s cruel.” Percy scolds, but his smiling face betrays his amusement. It surprises me how half hearted the admonishment is.

“In my defence, I’ve only ever done it when I’ve been extremely cross at him.”

“You’re often cross with Monty though, aren’t you?”

A more obvious statement is hard to come by, but I resist the urge to point that out. I am so used to arguing and snipping back at people who poke and prod at me that I sometimes have to force myself into remembering that some people mean no harm in the things that they say. Percy is one person I don’t believe has ever said anything to me with the intention of picking at my nerves. “You can't honestly expect me to believe that you're never cross with him.”

“I didn’t say that.” Percy objects. “Actually, I’m rather cross with him right now.”

“You are?”

“Why do you look so surprised? You were the one insisting that he must upset me from time to time.”

“Yes, well, I wasn’t expecting you to admit it.” I was expecting a laugh or a dismissal. Percy doesn’t often tell me things. He has no reason to. ”You’ve never said a bad word about him as far as I know.”

“Doesn’t mean I couldn’t.” That isn’t much of an admission on its own. I’d be far more surprised if Percy genuinely had no issues with Monty. “But no, I don’t make a habit of complaining about him, especially not to his sister. He’d be livid and as daft as he is, he’s still my best mate.”

“But you’re telling me now,” I observe, squinting at him a bit in a way that makes him draw back. 

“Maybe I’m feeling petty.” He says it like a joke, but I dont laugh. I can see him biting at the inside of his cheek and I know that there's some truth behind it.

“What’s he done now?” I roll my eyes. “If you tell me you might feel better.”

I can practically see Percy battle with his morals, taking his bottom lip between his teeth and looking down to his lap, where his fingers are tracing invisible patterns on the surface of his fiddle case. 

The thing about Percy is he thinks about things twice as long and twice as hard as any of the other boys his age do. He’s careful to the point that it often feels like he runs every action through a filter of etiquette and appropriateness. 

When he was young, and he was keeping regular company with my brother and the other local boys, I remember observing that when they got in trouble for breaking something or being too rough or rowdy, it always seemed that Percy was treated more harshly. For the same misbehaviours Monty would get warnings where Percy would get sneers and whispers. 

One winter when they were perhaps ten and three years I recall an incident where one boy from their small cohort tore a hole up the sleeve of his brand new coat, as well as a good portion of his arm, while running around. A bloody affair by Monty’s account that evening but I saw the boy not two days later and it had hardly been a scratch by my judgement. Yet, the very next day following the accident that boys mother had marched down to the place where the boys always gathered to play their games. There she had cornered poor Percy. She all but shouted the street down about how the accident had been Percy’s fault. As if somehow he had been to blame for a simple trip and fall. And Percy, who even at that rambunctious age was nothing if not polite and kind, had stood there and taken every word of it in mortified silence.

I hadn’t witnessed this in person, but I heard enough about it. Monty had been livid. “Percy didn’t even do anything, but I was the only person who said anything to that crone! The other’s wouldn’t say a word in his defence!” He had bellowed. I’d rolled my eyes but even at that age I’d known Percy better than to think him at fault. I figured the truth would come up and it would all go back to the way they were before.

I don’t think it ever really did.

Percy wasn’t allowed to play with that boy anymore after that. For the most part he and Monty had occupied themselves separate from the group from that point on which I have to believe was for the best. I heard from the injured boy’s sister, who was a year or two older than I was but who loved to gossip with anyone who had ears, that Percy’s aunt had taken him to their house that week to apologise for his behaviour and pay for the coat. 

Percy had been silent through the whole ordeal. The only thing anyone ever heard him say on the matter despite his innocence was “I’m sorry.”

I’m not ignorant to people's perception of Percy. I know the way he’s treated, the way the worst is always assumed of him by strangers, is because his skin is dark. To this day I can't be sure whether that boy blamed his accident on Percy to get out of trouble, or if his mother had made her own conclusions. It’s an idiotic distinction to draw, judging people by their skin. But I know first hand how much of society's hierarchies are completely fabricated to benefit those who construct said hierarchies.

So It’s not that I don’t know why he’s so thoughtful. He’s a genuinely kind person, but a lot of his stoicism boils down to conditioning, even though imagining him without it is strange. He’s always that way.

Except, of course, when he’s with Monty. I’d like to think that they’re good influences on each other but in honesty I haven’t seen them alone in their element enough to know for sure. Percy certainly drops some of his layers in my brother’s company but it’s hard for me to say whether that's a good thing, or whether my rake of a brother is getting an otherwise kind and polite boy into trouble.

“We had plans to do something last week and he never arrived.” Percy says much to my surprise. After the pause I had assumed he’d decline my offer of catharsis. “I came asking after him because I’d worried something might have happened, but no one seemed to know where he’d gotten off to. I didn’t find out until he came to hassle me late that night blind and rotten. Turns out he’d gotten foxed and run off to have fun with a woman he couldn’t give me the name of.”

The face I make probably makes my disgust abundantly clear but part of me wishes I could double it just for show. I’m about to say something along the lines of “That’s my brother for you” but Percy’s cheeks suddenly colour and he bows his head. 

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“Why on earth not?”

“You’re his sister, and a young lady.”

“Oh, please. Neither of those facts have ever stopped me from learning far more distasteful things about him than what you’ve just told me.”

“He’s not all bad.” Saint Percy is back. Despite having just taken the chance to complain about him here he is defending Monty’s reputation. “A lot more goes on in his head than you give him credit for. You don't have to be happy about the way he behaves. I know he can be terrible to you but I also know you can be just as terrible back.”

A passerby might have thought Percy’s final comment harsh or even downright offensive, but I know he doesn't mean it that way. In fact, I have on numerous occasions gotten the distinct impression that Percy finds my ability to bite back amusing. Something to be proud of. I also know that he’s right. “Exactly. We don’t get along.”

“You’re two very different people.” Percy says, nodding slowly. “But you also share a lot more than either of you think. Or maybe I’m imagining things.”

“Even if that’s true, Monty is rarely sober enough to have a decent discussion with and when he is sober he’s not all that pleasant.”

“He has things he needs to work on, but he’s got it in him to be a good person.”

“Why does it matter so much to you?” 

“I don’t want Monty to end up alone one day.” Percy says in such a somber tone that I realise that this isn’t a new thought to him. This is something that has been living inside of him for who knows how long. “Because he is good, and he is kind, or… or he can be those things. I’ve seen him be those things. I know it would be unfair to ask you to put up with the things that he does sometimes but somebody should stay by him. If no one believes that he’s good then of course he won't behave like he is.”

“You’ll be with him.” I say, and I’m horrified to find the tells of worry edging into my tone. “Won’t you? If he really needs someone to believe that he’s good, then you’re the best person I can think to do it.”

“As long as I can be.” He smiles, and I know he’s being honest but in my heart I know there’s a “but” going unspoken. There's an uncomfortable tightening sensation in my chest and I have this urge to demand he tell me what it is he isn’t saying. Stranger yet I think I’m afraid to know. He caps his statement with “Sorry, I’m thinking out loud.”

Out of all the things Percy has just said to me, all the subtle implications I could pick apart, for whatever reason the one thought that I’m stuck on is that Percy must really, genuinely care for my brother in a way that I’ve never seen anyone care for Monty. 

“I’m sorry that he’s not a very good friend to you.” I say, because I feel like someone has to apologise to Percy and I don’t think it’s going to be Monty. Not any time soon anyway. “He’s selfish, pig headed and inconsiderate.”

Percy, beyond all reason, smiles. It’s soft and warm and a little sad. I know that it’s not me he’s smiling at. “He cares in his own ways. He’s not always good at it, but he does.”

“I still think you could make better friends.” I say petulantly and Percy opens his mouth to protest but I quickly interrupt. “But I‘m glad you’ve stuck it out as long as you have. He needs a good influence. If you ever need me to tell him off for you I will. I’ll even dunk water all over him again if you’d like.”

That makes Percy laugh. A lot. “I think having a sister like you would be good fun, Felicity.”

It occurs to me then and there that Monty has been stitching Percy into our family bit by bit since I was a very little girl. When I think of the relationships that girls are meant to have with their older brothers I’d more quickly think of the day Percy dropped a spider he caught in the yard down the back of a boys shirt for pulling my hair than anything Monty has ever done. _Am I not your sister?_ A sentimental voice in the back of my mind comes forward, but I dismiss the thought. It’s disturbingly fond and definitely something that would get me laughed at.

“So.” I redirect, feeling a bit too close to having a sentimental thought about my brother’s best friend to be comfortable. “You’re cross that Monty got intoxicated and forgot about you?”

“More or less, but not entirely.”

“What else is there?”

“I was already feeling…” Percy makes a strange gesture with one hand, and his face turns a bit blank. “I was having a bad week already. I was sick in the beginning, and then once I was well again my aunt and uncle… Well, we had a disagreement about something. And there is something I really ought to talk to Monty about regarding that but most of all I really needed a friend that day and he was nowhere to be found.”

It’s more emotion than I’m used to getting from Percy. He’s usually got a tight wrap on those but I can see a little bit of him coming apart. It’s a little bit frightening for no reason I can name to see a crack in his composure. I’m not good at the feelings thing. I think that inaptitude runs in the family. My parents seem detached from the concept and Monty only seems to care about his own.

“You’ve been ill a lot this year.” I say instead of anything clever or helpful. I feel stupid and small but I know how to deal with sick, I dont know how to deal with sad. “This has been twice in as many months, hasn’t it?”

Percy winces but nods. “Yes, well-“

Whatever Percy had meant to say is cut off by a call from the direction of the house, loud and uncaring that it is interrupting.

”Hope you aren’t antagonising my friends over there, Felicity!”

Irritation jabs at me, any air of comfort evaporated in a moment seeing Monty sauntering over to us. He looks like he just crawled out of bed too.

”Impossible, you said _friends._ As in _plural,_ and You’ve only got the one.”

Percy nudges me in a silent _be nice._ I’d argue that Monty started it, only the look Percy’s giving him has the same message in it so I don’t mind quite as much. And to my surprise Monty seems to take the hint with a reluctant scowl.

“Really though, what are you two conspiring about?” He huffs, crossing his arms like we’re children again and he’s caught me playing with his favourite toy.

”Felicity was just keeping me company.” Percy says pleasantly.

I give Percy my own nudge, though the message of _if you’re cross with him then act like it_ is a bit more complex a message to be construed in one bump than _be nice._

The abashed smile he shoots my way makes me believe he got my meaning anyway.

”Can we talk, Monty?” Percy stands from his place beside me, shouldering his fiddle case. 

Monty looks between us with suspicion, but shrugs and motions to head back inside. “Come on, then.”

Before he goes off with my brother, Percy turns a smile on me. “It was good seeing you. Enjoy your books.”

”Good luck.” I say right back.

And my day goes on like normal. I don’t know where those two go off to but I don’t think they’re in the house when mother calls me back inside, lest I freckle in the sun. I don’t see Monty until that evening when he comes stomping in like the worlds ending. My first thought is that Percy has properly told him off and I’m ready to tease him about it. What he laments to me when I approach him however, is something else entirely.

“Percy is going away to bloody law school! In Holland!”


End file.
